The Consular Leadership Indicator: great idea in principle. But do they really think officers are going to give candid feedback about their supervisors right in the middle of EER* season? And what about all those ELOs** who are up before the Tenuring And Commission Board next month?

Apparently, Melih Gökçek, the Mayor of Ankara and close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went on a Twitter rampage of late directing his sexist remarks at the acting spokesperson of the State Department, Marie Harf. Man, that’s one angry fella. This guy is like … mighty mad, we could hear him screaming his head off in ALL CAPS on Twitter. Ms. Harf refused to dignify Mr. Gokcek’s insulting words and declined to response. The only appropriate response on personal attacks like this especially when hurled by a politician lacking decorum.

In related news, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass just turned blonde. Güzel efendim!

And because this is 2015, the former Gitmo detainees — Ali Shabaan (Syrian), Abdul (Tunisian), Abdul Hadi Faraj (Syrian) and Ahmed (Syrian) — now have a WordPress blog at exguantanamorefugeesinuruguay.wordpress.com, where they explained the reason for their protest:

The reason we decided to protest in front of the US embassy is that we wanted from them and from all the world to hear our voices. It´s something we didn’t want nor called for but unfortunately we were pushed to it. We tried every possible and official way, we talked to many representatives of the government but our conditions didn’t change.

We know that Uruguay is a “small country”, but with ¨big hearts”, we know that it is, as Mr Mujica said “a poor country” and that´s why we are protesting in front of the embassy because the US government detained us wrongfully for 13 years and now they should provide us with the means to live as normal human beings. They can´t just throw the mistakes on others, they should help us with houses and financial support. We are not asking the impossible from them they detained us for 13 years and they should help form some years to come. We think that this is the least they could do or we can ask for.

We also want to clarify to the Uruguayan people that we want to work and live in Uruguay. However it must be understood that this is a process that takes time; for example: our first goal is to learn spanish.

Ambassador Julissa Reynoso, a non-career appointee left post in December 2014 and has joined Chadbourne & Parke LLP as a partner in the firm’s International Arbitration and Latin America practice groups. The chargé d’affaires at US Embassy Montevideo is Brad Freden, a career diplomat who served at the U.S. Naval War College prior to his assignment in Uruguay.

If these protesters are waiting to speak with the U.S. ambassador, they’ll have a long wait, as a new nominee has yet to be announced. At the Daily Press Briefing of April 30, the official spox was asked if the U.S. has any sort of financial obligations to these men, having negotiated this agreement to resettle them into Uruguay. The official response: “We do not. As a general matter under the law of war, there is no obligation to provide direct compensation to individuals detained under the law of war for their detention.” A reporter notes that countries do get some kind of help sometimes to resettle these people and asked if that was that part of the deal with Uruguay. The official spox could only promised to “check in and see what our diplomatic discussions are like with countries who agree to resettle detainees.”